A color theme can be automatically derived from a digital image. For example, a color theme might consist of the five most frequently occurring colors in an image. Yet the extraction of a set of colors from a digital image is not a well defined problem—it is a subjective process which is shaped by the user's intent. One person may differ from another in the choice of colors. One person may choose to extract bright and cheery colors; another may choose a more natural set; yet another may choose a more drab or dreary set. Moreover, typical techniques for extracting colors produce them from an approximate color distribution (e.g., a histogram) and do not ensure that these colors actually correspond to exact colors or locations in the image.